Tonight's Sunday Night Suds beer review examines the wonderful, but rare, Redhook Blonde Ale. As you may recall from prior Sunday Night Suds posts (3/30/08 and 5/13/08)), Redhook is a bi coastal brewery that produces beer in New Hampshire and Washington State. Although this craft brewery's home markets are not heavily dominated by the kosher consumer, they have chosen to obtain OU certification for all of their products. Having tried all four of their brews that are currently on the market, I have only one thing to say - Thank You!
I first tried Blonde Ale when I saw it at Thrifty Beverage Center on Jamaica Avenue (just over the Cross Island Parkway in Queens). I brought home a sixer and shared some with Yehuda F who begged me to get more. I bought all that they had, but it was only three six packs and that was eighteen months ago.
Then last Friday, I was fortunate to have my youngest daughter throw up into my wife's hand. Let me explain. We were driving to Camp M for the weekend to visit my oldest daughter and all of a sudden my youngest starts tossing her cookies. We were driving on St. Rte. 206 at the time about two miles outside of Walton, NY. Since there was nowhere to stop, my aishes chayil (literally translated as woman of valor, but more colloquially expressed as my angel of a wife) starts catching the "cookies" in her hand. Well, we pull into Walton and stop at a combination gas station supermarket and I run in to get wipes. How could I ignore the sign that says that they have "the largest walk in beer cooler in the area"? I grab the wipes and wander into the cooler where I see a 12 pack of mixed Redhook brews. Of course, it was min shamayim (heaven sent). So I bought the box of Redhook and the story has a happy, if not smelly ending.
Redhook is the palest of ales. It has a dark yellow color and a malty flavor that finishes very smooth. It is a great summer beer and matches well with almost every food. I almost think that the Heineken man would like it, but I can never find it when he is around...
Redhook Blonde is under the Kosher Supervision of the Orthodox Union as are all all beers that I have seen produced by Redhook. For the experts' take on the Blonde Ale please click here http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/153/28708.
As always, please remember to drink responsibly and to never waste good beer unless there is no designated driver.
Post script - as I indicated in my Thursday post, R' Frand gave shiur on why beer is permitted. In so doing he did not spend time on the brewing process (other than to confirm that beer is usually made from the four ingredients and as such a hecksher is not vital). He did spend some time attacking the question of why beer is not under the rubric of bishul a'cum if the brewing process involves cooking. The short answer is that under most achronim - since it is not oleh al shulchan m'lachim (served on a King's table) and the brocha (blessing) is shehakol (due to the fact that grain is m'vatel by the liquid), we do not require bishul yisrael. The shiur itself was of course far more comprehensive. Anyone seeking more information can e-mail me at kosherlawny@gmail.com and I will try to provide as much information as I can.
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